Conclusion

A. Underlying Evidence
for Evolution?

The producers promised
to provide us with "underlying evidence behind claims of fact
and proposed theories." We saw lots of data, but how much of
it was evidence for Darwin's theory?

We saw lots of data from
the fossil record. We saw fossils of some of the first animals (from
the Cambrian explosion). We saw fossils of early land animals, dinosaurs,
early mammals, whales, ape-like creatures, and humans. Clearly,
the composition of the Earth's biosphere has changed over time.
Some things that used to inhabit the Earth are no longer with us,
and some things we see around us were not always here.

But the fossil record
does not--and cannot--show us ancestry and descent. Maybe some of
the fossils we saw were ancestral to others, and maybe they weren't.
As Henry Gee, chief science writer for Nature, wrote in 1999, "the
intervals of time that separate fossils are so huge that we cannot
say anything definite about their possible connection through ancestry
and descent." According to Gee: "To take a line of fossils
and claim that they represent a lineage is not a scientific hypothesis
that can be tested, but an assertion that carries the same validity
as a bedtime story--amusing, perhaps even instructive, but not scientific."See
. Henry Gee, In Search of Deep Time (New York: The Free Press, 1999),
23, 32, 113-117, 202.

Every time someone refers
to fossils as ancestors, that person is assuming
that Darwin's theory of common ancestry is true, and then stringing
fossils together in chains of ancestry and descent. But how do we
know that Darwin's theory is true?

We saw similarities and
differences among fossils, and between fossils and living species,
and among living species. But many of these were known to Darwin's
predecessors, who attributed them to designed construction rather
than to unguided evolution. In particular, we saw lots of similarities
and differences between humans and chimpanzees; by themselves, however,
such features tell us nothing about our ancestry.

How can we know that
similarities are due to common ancestry rather than common design?
Only by showing that natural processes can produce them. Otherwise,
the possibility remains that--like automobiles--living things were
constructed by design.

If we could observe the
process of descent with modification, that would settle the matter;
but we can't. So an evolutionary biologist begins by
assuming that Darwin was right, and interprets similarities
and differences from that perspective. But how do we know that Darwin
was right?

We saw data showing that
some organisms--mainly viruses and bacteria--change over time. But
the changes we saw were all within species.
If we started with HIV, we finished with HIV. The TB in an Egyptian
mummy was the same species found in New York City. Changes within
species were well known to Darwin's predecessors, but they do not
provide evidence for his theory about the origin of
new species.

Once more, if we simply
assume the truth of Darwin's theory,
then it's easy to imagine one species changing into another. But
why should we assume--in the absence of evidence--that Darwin's
theory is true?

It may seem uncharitable
to persist in questioning the truth of Darwin's theory, and to keep
insisting that Evolution show us evidence that actually supports
it. But that's what we were promised. And that's what science is
all about.

So the data we have reviewed
so far are not the kind that supports Darwin's theory. We were also
shown another kind of data in Evolution--the kind that appears to
support the theory, but isn't true.

B. Distortions of Scientific
and Historical Facts

We were told that the
genetic code--the "language" by which DNA specifies protein
sequences--is the same in all living things, and that this "is
powerful evidence that they all evolved on a single tree of life."
But molecular biologists have known for years that the genetic code
is not the same in all living things.
What we were told is false.

Then we were told that
HIV takes only "minutes to hours to move from one species to
another." This could provide some of the evidence that Darwin's
theory needs. But no new species formed. The claim is false.

Then we were told that
a tiny handful of powerful genes such as Antennapedia--which when
mutated causes flies to sprout legs from their heads--are the "architects
of the body" and the "genetic engine of evolution."
But these genes don't exert their effects until
after an animal's body is formed, so something else must be
the body's architect. And the fact that they are similar in radically
different animals, and that mutations in them never make animals
more fit, shows that such genes cannot explain the evolution of
one kind of animal from another.

Finally, we were told
about "people" who lived millions of years ago--though
we were also told that people (as we normally use the word) first
appeared about fifty thousand years ago. Evolution called the genetic
code universal when it isn't, said HIV moved to a new species when
it didn't, claimed genes like Antennapedia make animal bodies when
they can't, and called ape-like creatures people when they weren't.
In other words, Evolution systematically misrepresented the evidence
to make it look as though it supports Darwin's theory--when it doesn't.

Evolution also distorted
historical facts as well as scientific ones. It mischaracterized
the details of Darwin's life to promote the scientist-vs.-fundamentalist
stereotype that runs throughout the series. In fact, much of the
opposition to Darwin's theory during his lifetime came from scientists,
not theologians. And among the theologians, criticism was aimed
primarily at Darwin's rejection of design, not his challenge to
biblical literalism.

The situation is similar
today. Although Evolution would have us believe that all of the
opposition to Darwin's theory comes from biblical literalists like
Ken Ham, only about 10% of Americans accept Darwinian evolution
in full. The vast majority of Americans--not just biblical literalists--have
a problem with Darwin's claim that living things are undesigned
products of an unguided process.

Even worse, Evolution
completely ignored or misrepresented the growing number of highly
qualified scientists who criticize or reject Darwin's theory. For
example, the series dismissed intelligent design theorists as biblical
literalists, even though articles by mainstream journalists in The
Los Angeles Times and The New York Times have pointed out that this
is false.

Evolution's most egregious
distortions of history, however, involve the 1925 Scopes trial and
its aftermath. First, it misrepresented William Jennings Bryan as
a biblical literalist in order to promote the scientist-vs.-fundamentalist
stereotype. Second, it made the preposterous claim that U.S. science
education was "neglected" in the decades following the
trial--the same decades when America produced more Nobel laureates
than the rest of the world combined. And finally, it portrayed modern
evolutionists as the victims of Scopes-style censorship, when in
fact the situation is now exactly the reverse, with Darwinists censoring
their critics.

So Evolution presented
us with some data that didn't really support Darwin's theory, and
some data that appeared to support the theory but turned out to
be false. The series also distorted history to discredit Darwin's
critics. Perhaps even more surprising, however, was the way Evolution
ignored scientists who accept Darwin's theory but who disagree with
many of the things this series said about it.

C. Shallow and Lopsided
Coverage of Scientific Controversies

According to its producers,
one of Evolution's goals was to report on "areas where the
science is sound." Yet many of the areas covered by the series
are far from being sound--in fact, they are highly controversial
even among evolutionary biologists.

We were told that sexual
reproduction exists because it generates genetic variability. This
supposedly enables members of sexually reproducing species to resist
parasites and adapt to changing environments. Although many biologists
believe this, the evidence is inconclusive, and the issue remains
highly controversial. As Science reported in 1998, biologists "haven't
solved the mystery of sex yet," partly because of "extremely
lousy experimental data." So "how sex began and why it
thrived remain a mystery."

We watched a long interview
with evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller, who thinks that
the human brain is like a peacock's tail. Both, he thinks, are products
of sexual selection. Miller also regards all of human culture as
a by-product of sexual choices. But many biologists regard evolutionary
psychology as a non-science. According to University of Chicago
evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne, evolutionary psychologists "deal
in their own dogmas, and not in propositions of science." And
American Museum of Natural History paleoanthropologist Ian Tattersall
wrote of Miller's work: "In the end we are looking here at
a product of the storyteller's art, not of science."

Evolution's coverage
of these highly controversial areas was completely one-sided. No
critical voices were raised, leaving viewers with the misleading
impression that these were "areas where the science is sound."
Instead of educating viewers about how science really works, Evolution
chose to indoctrinate them in the latest fads.

And two of these--evolutionary
psychology and memetic evolution--also served the producers' goal
of convincing us that almost everything revolves around Darwinian
evolution.

D. Is Evolution Indispensable
to Medicine, Agriculture, and Choice of Mate?

One goal of the series,
the producers said, was to show that evolution is important to "almost
every aspect of human life," from "medicine to agriculture
to a person's choice of mate." Let's see how well it did.

Episodes One and Four
suggested that evolution is important to medicine because it has
been instrumental in treating HIV patients. In the first case, patients
were taken off of drugs so the HIV in their bodies could lose its
drug-resistance. This strategy of interrupting treatment seemed
to work, but how much did it owe to evolution? Contrary to what
we were told, no new species of HIV emerged. The change that was
observed could have been predicted from principles of artificial
selection that were known for centuries before Darwin. In Episode
Four, the connection between HIV and evolution was even more tenuous,
and the discovery of a protective mutation did nothing to help patients.

The story of multi-drug
resistance in tuberculosis was interesting and important, but like
the HIV story in Episode One it owed nothing to Darwin and did not
provide evidence for his theory. And the main lesson from the cholera
story was that we should drink clean water--but we already knew
that.

The story of insulin
in Episode Six was the most far-fetched of all. Effective treatment
of diabetes is a triumph of modern medicine, but calling it a "meme"
and putting a Darwinian "spin" on it is sheer nonsense.
This--like Blackmore's assertion that memes invented the Internet--sounds
suspiciously like the Soviets' old insistence that they invented
the telephone.

The leafy spurge story
in Episode Three was Evolution's feeble bid to lay claim to agriculture.
But using an insect to control an agricultural pest is nothing new.
The ancient Chinese and Yemenis did it, with no help from Darwin.
The leafy spurge story was interesting, but it neither depended
on evolutionary theory nor provided any support for it.

Finally, the advice that
Evolution gave us in choosing a mate was perhaps the least useful
of all. Choose your mate by smelling his T-shirt, or by selecting
his face from a computer line-up, or because he has a bigger brain.
Or choose memetic evolution and do whatever you want, without regard
for biological consequences.

It seems, then, that
Darwinian evolution isn't really important to medicine, agriculture,
or match-making after all. Nevertheless, the producers of the series
make it clear that there is one realm where it is absolutely essential:
religion.

E. The Religious Realm

In keeping with "solid
science journalism," the producers of Evolution set out to
examine "empirically-testable explanations" while avoiding
"the religious realm."

Yet Evolution dealt with
the religious realm from start to finish. It twisted historical
facts to make critics of evolution look like biblical literalists.
It employed religious symbolism such as Michelangelo's painting
of God touching Adam to convey its message that humans are not special.
And it quoted--repeatedly and approvingly--anti-religious statements
by a whole parade of Darwinists.

In Episode One, Daniel
Dennett told us that after Darwin we no longer have "meaning
coming from on high and being ordained from the top down."
Stephen Jay Gould pooh-poohed the idea that "God had several
independent lineages and they were all moving in certain pre-ordained
directions which pleased His sense of how a uniform and harmonious
world ought to be put together." And James Moore stated the
problem Emma Darwin had with her husband's theory: "Now if
nature, by itself, unaided by God, could make an eye, then what
else couldn't nature do? Nature could
do anything!"

Kenneth Miller argued
that imperfections in the vertebrate eye were "proof"
that it was due to evolution rather than God's design. We visited
him in church, and he told us: "I'm an orthodox Catholic and
I'm an orthodox Darwinist." Then he said that "if God
is working today in concert with the laws of nature, with physical
laws and so forth, He probably worked in concert with them in the
past. In a sense, in a sense, He's the guy who made up the rules
of the game, and He manages to act within those rules." Finally,
James Moore concluded Episode One by assuring us that "Darwin's
vision of nature was, I believe, fundamentally a religious vision."

Episode Five taught us
that Darwin replaced the idea of God creating ornate feathers with
his theory of sexual selection. Geoffrey Miller said "it wasn't
God, it was our ancestors . . . choosing their sexual partners"
that accounted for the origin of the human brain. Then Handel's
Messiah was used to illustrate Miller's claim that all of human
culture is a result of our sexual instincts.

Finally, Episode Seven
was devoted entirely to religion. We
watched biblical literalist Ken Ham lecturing about creation in
a church; we witnessed students at Wheaton College struggling with
their Christian upbringing; and we saw a local school board deny
a student petition to teach creation alongside evolution. Yet we
saw and heard nothing from critics of Darwinian evolution--either
scientific or religious--who are not
biblical literalists. The message was clear: religion is OK in its
place, as long as it doesn't challenge Darwinism.

So Evolution had quite
a lot to say about the religious realm. And far from reporting objectively
on the wide range of religious viewpoints in America, it singled
out only two--one of which it obviously preferred over the other.
Now, the producers of Evolution are entitled to their opinion. In
America, everyone is. But the government, and other public resources
such as PBS, are not supposed to favor one religion over another.
What is the justification for broadcasting this series on public
television, and distributing it to public schools, when it is so
clearly biased, both scientifically and religiously?

F. Evolution and Public
Policy

PBS is funded in part
by American taxpayers. It is thus supposed to remain neutral in
religious matters. It is absolutely inappropriate for PBS to engage
in activities that promote one religious view over another.

It is also inappropriate
for PBS to attempt to influence the political process. Yet the producers
of the Evolution series are trying to do just that. According to
the June 15, 2001, document cited in the introduction, one goal
of the project is to "co-opt existing local dialogue about
teaching evolution in schools." Another goal is to "promote
participation," including "getting involved with local
school boards." Moreover, "government officials"
are identified as one of the target audiences for the series, and
the publicity campaign accompanying the series will include the
writing of op-eds. Clearly, one purpose of Evolution is to influence
school boards and to promote political action regarding how evolution
is taught in public schools.

The American people--and
especially America's students--deserve to be informed about the
controversy over Darwin's theory of evolution. But the PBS Evolution
series is not a sincere effort to inform. Instead, it is an effort
to make Darwinian evolution seem more scientific than it really
is, to promote one religious viewpoint over others, and to influence
local school boards to grant exclusive control to a controversial
theory. This is not education. This is not good science journalism.
This is propaganda.

The Coyne quotation
is from Jerry A. Coyne, "Of Vice and Men: The fairy tales of
evolutionary psychology," a review of Randy Thornhill and Craig
Palmer's A Natural History of Rape, in The New Republic (April 3,
2000), last page. The entire review is available at:

http://www.thenewrepublic.com/040300/coyne040300.html

The Tattersall
quotation is from Ian Tattersall, "Whatever turns you on,"
a review of Geoffrey Miller's book, The Mating Mind, in the New
York Times Book Review (June 11, 2000).

Stephen Jay
Gould called memes a "meaningless metaphor" on a radio
show November 11, 1996. See Susan Blackmore, "Memes, Minds
and Selves," at:

http://www.tribunes.com/tribune/art98/blac.htm#b.

The Coyne
quotation is from Jerry A. Coyne, "The self-centred meme,"
a review of Susan Blackmore's The Meme Machine, in Nature (April
29, 1999), 767-768.

.
Quotations from the producers about their goals are taken from
"The Evolution Controversy: Use It Or Lose It."--a
document prepared by Evolution Project/WGBH Boston and distributed
to PBS affiliates on June 15, 2001. The document concludes by
suggesting that "any further questions" should be
directed to WGBH, giving the following information:

The web site
for WGBH is http://www.wgbh.org/

Related web
sites include: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/

http://www.pbs.org/

Other contact
information:

WGBH

125 Western
Avenue

Boston, MA
02134

(617) 300-2000

(617) 300-5400

For more information
about the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), go to
http://www.natcenscied.org/